Lost

This has nothing to do with IT, but it's a wtf and as it happens I currently have to listen to a meeting taking place 4m away, so I might as well waste my time posting.

The other day I was in a subway station waiting to catch a train home. This particular station has two lines going through it, so it has 3 levels. One, just underground, has the ticket booths etc and the two lower ones each have platforms for a line. I'm standing at the lowest one.

A couple walks up to a guy standing next to me and go:

"How do we get out?"

The guy points them at the stairs they just came down.

"No, we don't want to go to another platform, we want to get out"

Apparently these people had got off the train at some other platform and didn't know where to go. The guy points directly overhead at a big sign with the word "EXIT" and an arrow on it. They reluctantly walk off.

Now I have to ask... how terminally dumb do you have to be not to be able to get out of a subway station? These people came from another platform down some stairs to get to where I was standing. Did they feel a breeze and though surely, that's the exit? Did they think this particular station was in a high-rise building? Maybe they though that if they went down they could pass through Moria and come out the other side?

I can understand getting turned around trying to find the right exit out of a subway station — quite a few stations here in Boston have multiple exits that are a block apart, or on all four corners of an intersection — but if your goal is simply to get out, one would think all the years of exposure to EXIT signs would have sunk in. Perhaps the couple were from a very rural background, and so unfamiliar with city life that they'd never seen an EXIT sign?

I can understand getting turned around trying to find the right exit out of a subway station — quite a few stations here in Boston have multiple exits that are a block apart, or on all four corners of an intersection — but if your goal is simply to get out, one would think all the years of exposure to EXIT signs would have sunk in. Perhaps the couple were from a very rural background, and so unfamiliar with city life that they'd never seen an EXIT sign?

I do those things all the time. The problem is there is just so much to look at that my attention can't settle down to report to my brain, "Oh look, it's a timetable and/or exit sign. Le'ts read that." Instead, it says to me, "sign SIGN stranger CORRIDOR fruit HOBO fruit LOOK OUT FOR THE PUDDLE sign WHAT IS THAT SMELL" and it is all very confusing and stressful. Unfamiliar giant super markets are just painful. I could be standing right in front of produce for minutes looking for the apple in front of me. TOO MUCH TO SEE.

Some people prefer asking rather than thinking, even if they're in possession of a functional brain. It's a stupid habit, rather than being stupid.

I've heard people asking whether train or bus goes to X, when they're in direct line of sight from a timetable.

I don't know about your bus stops, but ours have timetables with ridiculously small fonts, laid out strangely (times go left-to-right instead of top-to-bottom), and there's usually a lazy fat rider leaning against the thing. And if you conquer all those obstacles, you realize that the timetable doesn't show you the times for this stop, only for the last timed stop-- which could be anywhere from 5 mins to 15 mins away.

It's actually quicker to whip out your smartphone, go to the transit website, and look it up.

So... they exit their train on the middle platform and decide 'down' is the best option for exiting the station? Riiiiiight...

This is how the morlocks get started.

In Washington, DC, the China Town Station actually requires you to go down from one of the train lines, but up from the other train line (I can't remember the colors of the lines off the top of my head) in order to get to the escalators on a middle platform so you can ride escalators up to ground level to get out. They don't mark the exits very well there, either.

I can understand getting turned around trying to find the right exit out of a subway station — quite a few stations here in Boston have multiple exits that are a block apart, or on all four corners of an intersection

I'm guessing the actual issue was either this, or they didn't speak the language very well (or some combination of the two). They might also have been used to the WTF-laden subway stations where you have to walk half a mile to get from certain platforms to the exit, and from some platforms there's no apparent route to the right exit short of vaulting over the tracks.

I was the Confused Tourist one time in Madrid because of the station design. The subway map showed two different lines going to the station I wanted, so naturally I took the most convenient. What I didn't know was that the two lines went to completely separate parts of the same station, and forget about any clear link between the two sections. Nothing like getting above-ground in a foreign land and thinking "where the hell am I?" TRWTF in that story is that the entire time I was "lost", I was only a couple blocks from a part of town I recognized.

In Washington, DC, the China Town Station actually requires you to go down from one of the train lines, but up from the other train line (I can't remember the colors of the lines off the top of my head) in order to get to the escalators on a middle platform so you can ride escalators up to ground level to get out. They don't mark the exits very well there, either.

Pretty sure there are a couple stations like that.

I actually had to be in town during the fucking cherry blossom festival. Parked my car at the Vienna station (In like the last goddamn parking spot) and went in. The station was a goddamn zoo - I got in line for the infernal machines because I needed day passes for my companions. EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON in line proceeded to be confused as hell by the machines, and then at the last second before buying a regular day pass or farecard, discovered the "YOU NEED A RELOADABLE CARD TO PAY FOR PARKING AT ALL METRO STATIONS EXCEPT VIENNA AND SOME OTHER PLACE I DON'T CARE ABOUT" sign. They'd then cancel out their order and puzzle through the system again to buy a reloadable card (for which they grossly overpaid) because they apparently couldn't read, or didn't know where they were (how they intended to get back I have no idea).

After allowing a dozen groups punish themselves in this way, some to the tune of SEVERAL HUNDRED DOLLARS, wasting about half an hour I started shouting at them that they could pay for parking with a credit card at this station and just to buy regular farecards. The two groups in front of me, I went so far as to push the goddamn buttons for them.

So... they exit their train on the middle platform
and decide 'down' is the best option for exiting the station? Riiiiiight...

This is how the morlocks get started.

I've been in subways where that's the way it is at some stations. Ok,
maybe subway isn't the best way to describe said transports, but since
it's the way the locals refer to it, it's easier to just go along with
it, rather than saying, "The mass transit system which is subterranian
for some stretches and elevated in others."

What I didn't know was that the two lines went to completely separate parts of the same station, and forget about any clear link between the two sections.

In the Netherlands, we have (ta-tadadaa) Amsterdam Sloterdijk.

Go to it. Find platform 10.

Psych!

You have to exit the main building, walk 100 metres to the left across a spacious boulevard/bus stop and cross a rather busy road, maybe dodge a tram, there enter a large, empty hall and go up the stairs.

I have a key to the old harvard square subway station here in boston. It sits right next to the current one and is directly beneath au bon pan. The new one was built to accomodate the extension of the red line past harvard to alewife station. Theres a few hobos who live down there, one of whom would tell you awesome stories about how he started world war two because he woke up one day and realized he was clam.

I have a key to the old harvard square subway station here in boston. It sits right next to the current one and is directly beneath au bon pan. The new one was built to accomodate the extension of the red line past harvard to alewife station. Theres a few hobos who live down there, one of whom would tell you awesome stories about how he started world war two because he woke up one day and realized he was clam.

I ran into a guy not too long ago who was convinced that the decline of western civilization was a direct result of that metal musical sculpture thing in the Kendall station no longer working.

I ran into a guy not too long ago who was convinced that the decline of western civilization was a direct result of that metal musical sculpture thing in the Kendall station no longer working.

Cambridge hobos are their own breed of awesome. especialy the listerine hobos. Between Captain Kraig (The Clammaster), Henley (Mr, I want to get you in a bathtub), and Stink Finger (RIP, The pedophile clown of harvard square) Theres enough comedic material for these guys to get their sitcom.

I ran into a guy not too long ago who was convinced that the decline of western civilization was a direct result of that metal musical sculpture thing in the Kendall station no longer working.

Wait, the Kendall Square sculpture doesn't work anymore? When did that happen? It worked several months ago, when I was still on the Red Line and not the Green Line, and I went through Kendall often.

There was a time when no one was actively maintaining it and not all of it was working correctly, which I think is what the gentleman was referring to. I gather some people from MIT have taken up the charge of repairing it.

I ran into a guy not too long ago who was convinced that the decline of western civilization was a direct result of that metal musical sculpture thing in the Kendall station no longer working.

Wait, the Kendall Square sculpture doesn't work anymore? When did that happen? It worked several months ago, when I was still on the Red Line and not the Green Line, and I went through Kendall often.

There was a time when no one was actively maintaining it and not all of it was working correctly, which I think is what the gentleman was referring to. I gather some people from MIT have taken up the charge of repairing it.

Oh yeah, I think I remember reading about that in the Metro, now that you mention it.

Of course, I probably assumed it was bullshit, given that it was in the Metro.

Almost every major city I know has these huge multilevel multimodal stations where you can switch trains, trams, subways, and busses on several places. They get designed for a certain amount of trafic, then outgrow them, new levels or substations get added and they get even more confusing, even worse so if several stations more or less grow together.

Urban planners must love them (and they love to redesign them), but for the casual user they are absolute nightmares. I've also had that bewildered look on my face a few times, especially if you're not all that familiar with the language.

that's the one where all the lost tourists have to change to get from Schiphol to elsewhere isnt it?

Hey, the Netherlands are small, but not that small. Consult the map, plx.

Perhaps I should have been more specific - changing trains from Schiphol to Utrecht. I'm talking about 15 years ago so my memory is hazy, but I remember some very lost tourists trying to find their way around Sloterdijk.